Chrome 66 Silences Autoplay Videos

Videos will no longer be allowed to play automatically with sound by default in Chrome.

(CCM) — Chrome 66 puts an end web pages that blast out sound from video files that play automatically when the page is loaded.

The latest version of Google's hugely popular web browser blocks sound on autoplay content by default, replacing a feature which allowed Chrome users to block sound permanently on a site-by-site basis.

On the desktop version of Chrome, the browser uses a measure called the Media Engagement Index (MEI) to determine if a user may want a video to play automatically with sound on a given site, based on a number of factors including whether audio and video sessions in the past exceed seven seconds, whether the tab with the video is active, and whether the size of the video is greater than 240 x 140 pixels.

On mobile devices such as smartphones, autoplay media with sound will be allowed only if the site has been added to the user's home screen.

Chrome 66 also offers an improved version of a security feature introduced in Chrome 63 called "Site Isolation." This keeps pages from different websites isolated in their own "sandboxes" to prevent malware on one site being able to interact with or steal passwords or other data from another one.

The new browser version also fixed 62 security bugs that were present in earlier versions.